Rugged Interdependency - Amaravati Buddhist Monastery

Rugged Interdependencyday meditation retreats and I have collaborated with them a number of combinedyoga/ Buddhist meditation events.In 1999 I was invited to co-lead a ten-day retreat at Spirit Rock with theDzogchen master Tsokny Rinpoche; it was said to have probably been the firstTheravāda/Vajrayāna collaborative event since Nalanda University was destroyedin the 12 th Century CE. The talks I gave at that retreat were published in 2003as a book, Small Boat, Great Mountain; apparently it has been a very popularitem to download from the Monastery website [http://www.abhayagiri.org/index.php/main/book/138/].In 2000 the students of Tsoknyi Rinpoche and his elder brotherChokyi Nyima Rinpoche opened the retreat center, Rangjung Yeshe Gomde, nearLeggett, on the Eel River about 60 miles north of Abhayagiri.More than five miles of footpaths, bridges and steps have been gently carvedinto the hillsides of the Abhayagiri forest. The loop trail that circles the whole ofthe interior of the bowl of our valley is two-and-a-half miles long and has thirteenfootbridges over the creeks that crease the precipitous hillsides.The junior monks have continued to keep up the practice of traveling away fromthe familiar environs of Abhayagiri, after a few years of training: Tan Hasapaññohas gone to Thailand and has settled there, although at the time of writing he is ona sojourn in Australia; Tan Ñāniko also spent a year in Thailand but is now backat Abhayagiri; Tan Ahimsako is spending his time away in England; he is due toreturn to Abhayagiri in June of 2007.Several of the other characters mentioned in these narrative have also gonethrough major transitions: John Cianciosi and Aungchoye Thrupkaew are nolonger together, however, Joseph Kappel and Katherine were married in the fallof 2004; Ajahns Vipassi, Akiñcano and Samvaro have all disrobed, while Kris, ourtrusty botanical guide in New York and the sister of Jill Satterfield, got marriedrecently and already has two children to occupy her in another kind of nursery.Since the latter half of 1998 both Ajahn Pasanno and I have made the trainingof the monastic community the number one priority at Abhayagiri. From thebeginning (i.e. 1996) it was clear we did not need to try to be all things to all people– a problem that Spirit Rock continually wrestles with – but we saw that, in orderto do what we really wanted to do here, and to offer that which so few other placeswere providing (i.e. thorough training in classic Theravādan monastic practice) wehad to narrow the focus even more. We have learned to say No to a lot of things.135